# Lithium and Tobacco



## Airborne RU (Oct 7, 2006)

I've heard it on this board and others that tobacco in general and Cuban tobacco in particular has high amounts of lithium in it. Which contributes to the general sense of well being after smoking a habanos. For those of you who do not know lithium is used to treat bipolar disorder and it "works to stabilize the mood and reduces extremes in behavior." Call it self medication I guess.

So I googled lithium in tobacco and below is what I found. It is from a study of Indian men and their normal natural dietary intake of lithium in vegetarian and non-vegetarian diets. The actual title of the study is _Manic depressive psychosis in India an the possible role of lithium as a prophylactic_.

_Lithium content of food:
The results of analysis of various articles of food are shown in [Table - 1]. Amongst the various leafy and non-leafy vegetables which were analysed, coriander leaves, tamarind, tomato and garlic had high amounts of lithium; while onions, green chillies, and vegetables like cauliflower had little lithium. Spices such as nutmeg, cummin seeds and coriander seeds had high lithium content. The lithium content was high in various cereals and pulses like pearl-millet, black-gram, and chawli seeds; while rice and wheat contained very little lithium.
Lithium content was also found to be high in rock salt and commonly used crude sea salt as compared to refined table salt.
The highest amount of lithium (12 µg/gm) was detected in tobacco._

Interestingly enough I also found that if someone tried to treat tobacco plants with lithium, artificially, it induces the formation of necrotic lesions and leaf curling (not good for the plant). So I guess it would be hard to "lard" the soil, artificially with lithium to get a desired effect.

Just thought that I'd share. Looks like what I heard 'round here may be correct. Anyone know any different?


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## adsantos13 (Oct 10, 2006)

I'm no scientist, but I quick search on lithium shows that the active dose administered to patients is something in the range of 600 to 1200 mg's which is very compared to the 12ug's noted in the source quoted. Second, I would question whether lithium is active when smoked. 

Like I said though, I'm not scientist.


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## daniyal (Oct 9, 2007)

adsantos13 said:


> I'm no scientist, but I quick search on lithium shows that the active dose administered to patients is something in the range of 600 to 1200 mg's which is very compared to the 12ug's noted in the source quoted. Second, I would question whether lithium is active when smoked.
> 
> Like I said though, I'm not scientist.


:tpd: and wonder if lighting the tobacco destroys the lithium?


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## bi11fish (Dec 3, 2006)

Is there a doctor in the house!!!


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## mash (Jul 24, 2007)

bi11fish said:


> Is there a doctor in the house!!!


Yup. I run a unit in the equivalent of a State psychiatric hospital. The poster who talked about normal dosages being 800-1200 mg is on target. If tobacco has 12 micrograms per gram of Lithium, and a stick is roughly 10 gm of tobacco, this is one tenth of a gram of Lithium, or about 1/10,000 of a typical dose. Smoke up.

PS My understanding was there would be no math.


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## NCRadioMan (Feb 28, 2005)

Here are a few threads about this. I don't buy it.

http://www.clubstogie.com/vb/showthread.php?t=61543&highlight=lithium

http://www.clubstogie.com/vb/showthread.php?t=8936&highlight=lithium


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## icehog3 (Feb 20, 2005)

bi11fish said:


> Is there a doctor in the house!!!


Paging Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard....


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## muziq (Mar 14, 2005)

mash said:


> PS My understanding was there would be no math.


:tpd: yes, please stop with the math! :r


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## Coffee Grounds (Feb 14, 2007)

Wow,
Now I know why I am "just sailing along with the breeze" after every cigar


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## pbrennan10 (Apr 9, 2007)

I'm So High On Lithium Right Now


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## mosesbotbol (Sep 21, 2005)

The lithium vapor goes right into the blood stream vs. digesting a pill, so I would assume a smaller dosage would have more significant results than just the dosage size. Whether such a small dosage size would aid bi-polar smokers would be doubtful, but others may experience "something" as they normally do when enjoying a cigar.


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## Bruin7 (Sep 6, 2007)

This was a very interesting read. Thanks for the info bro.

Bruin7


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## adsantos13 (Oct 10, 2006)

mosesbotbol said:


> The lithium vapor goes right into the blood stream vs. digesting a pill, so I would assume a smaller dosage would have more significant results than just the dosage size. Whether such a small dosage size would aid bi-polar smokers would be doubtful, but others may experience "something" as they normally do when enjoying a cigar.


I'm still not convinced...

My understanding is that Lithium is a mood stabilizer. Bipolar vascilate between mania and depression and lithium serves to stop these mood swings.

If someone who is not bipolar takes Lithium I don't think it would necessarily make them "high", since their body is functioning normally and regulating the brain chemistry via its own mechanisms. The side effects are drowsiness, loss of sex drive, stuff like that. If Lithium produced some kind of euphoria, sedation, analgesia, or "high" you'd definitely find it being sold on the black market along with stuff like Valium, Oxycodone, Hydrocodone, Xanax, etc.

This is anecdotal of course, but my cousin who is bipolar asked to be taken off lithium because it made her feel like crap physically and caused some pretty nasty side effects.


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## mash (Jul 24, 2007)

The reality is that the amount of lithium you would get from smoking a cigar, if the figures by the OP are right, is completely inconsequential. Regardless of the fact that it's inhaled and bypasses metabolism by the liver, there is such a miniscule amount that it will do nothing good or harmful. You are probably getting more lithium in your drinking water, which is how its effects for bipolar disorder were discovered. There was a source of well water in Australia that had massive concentrations of it, one of many medical discoveries made by serendipidity.


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## mosesbotbol (Sep 21, 2005)

adsantos13 said:


> I'm still not convinced...
> 
> My understanding is that Lithium is a mood stabilizer. Bipolar vascilate between mania and depression and lithium serves to stop these mood swings.


I am not convinced either, just throwing it out there. Obviously, cigars do something, but I think a lot of that is in the mind as we are forced to relax and enjoy the cigar. Some of the calming could be from lithium if one was anxious before smoking.


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## n2advnture (Aug 9, 2004)

I found this when this topic was discussed years ago:



> THE PRIVILEGE OF BEING A GEOLOGIST
> Bernard de Jong (1940-)
> Department of Earth Sciences, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
> 
> ...


I hope this helps

~Mark


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## GOAT LOCKER (Aug 7, 2004)

n2advnture said:


> The upshot was that our Bulgarian standard had more Lithium than the Cuban leaves, so we abandoned this project.


Rather than have to smoke Bulgarian tobacco, they cancelled the project? :r :r

I also agree that the amount of lithium in tobacco is insignificant, and that drawing smoke into your mouth and sinuses would be a very ineffective way to ingest it.


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